The discussion revolves around the discovery of a gene that is claimed to regulate lifespan and aging. Participants explore the implications of this finding, the complexities of aging as a biological process, and the nature of scientific inquiry in this context.
Participants generally do not reach a consensus, with multiple competing views on the validity and implications of the gene discovery, as well as the nature of scientific inquiry into aging.
Limitations in the discussion include the complexity of aging as a biological process, the dependency on specific definitions of terms like "mechanism," and the unresolved nature of how the identified genes interact within broader biological pathways.
arildno said:
Congratulations on 5,000 posts!1! Some silly correlation?arildno said:
This is how science is done, you permutate the system and observe what happens. Players in a pathway have been found, now it is their task to find out exactly how the pathway work.
dumb, right, you never know what the impact will be of research findings. For instance, telomeres of tumor cells shorter faster than other cells because of the number of divisions they undergo. Such tumor cells produce telomerase to elongate their telomeres, anti-telomerase therapy would directly target tumor cells. Dumb? Same with free radicals, people get ill when they can't inactivate them.arildno said:
That is indeed the question. The fact that many species tend to die of old age around different "set" life times that seem to depend on the species (very few humans live to be over one hundred and none of us have lived to be thousands of years old like some trees for example) does point towards the conclusion that "death" might be programmed into the DNA in some way (as opposed to a strictly random occurrence...if it was random, theoretically some humans could live to be thousands of years old but there is no evidence in many trillions of examples of this occurring).
Nothing. The problem has never been the scientists themselves you know, in the middle ages it was always the "kings" that hired the scientists to search for the secret of immortality (so that they themselves could rule forever and avoid death). Chemisty for example, was originally created by "alchemists" who were trying to figure out what it is that made "Gold" unreactive (in ancient times it was thought that since Gold didn't observably degrade in the same way that things like Iron did, that it holded some secret to immortality which is why all the rich people would quite literally "treasure" it...as it was a symbol of stability, permanence, and immortality). Of course, the alchemists failed in their attempt to "transform" Iron into Gold and now we know that Gold isn't as unreactive as people once thought anyways. Moral of the story: Who is to say *what* the end result of the search for the death gene will be? Either way, don't shoot the messenger, curiosity is one of the few "noble" things that humanity still has left
Monique said: